Letter to the Editor: Vote yes on the road levy
Posted October 21, 2022 at 8:42 pm by San Juan Update
Please vote yes for the road levy — Proposition 1. The San Juan County road fund lacks sufficient funding to repair critical infrastructure in San Juan County. Your yes vote will address:
- Over a dozen marine facilities
- Hundreds of culverts under roads or in side ditches
- Safer road shoulders along busy arterials
The infrastructure of roads and marine facilities depends on sound management for a healthy economy, for our safety, and for our quality of life. Sound management demands long-term planning with stable funding to repair all structures efficiently. The one percent annual increase to the road levy allowed by state law can no longer keep up. It takes a sensible plan looking decades ahead to make the best use of tax dollars to maintain this vital infrastructure. A yes vote will allow that.
Costs are higher today, the use of roads is greater with different vehicles and electric bicycles and pedestrians. More severe weather damages roads and marine facilities which forces emergency repairs — the most expensive repairs. Hundreds of old undersized or broken culverts are a good example of the challenge facing San Juan County. There is no quick fix for such a costly challenge; only a sound maintenance plan can avoid more road washouts or damage to intersecting driveways.
Let’s not end up like the ferry system, which has failed to address an aging fleet leading to the unnecessary repairs and delays that hurt us and the local economy. Vote yes for the road levy.
David Zeretzke
San Juan Island
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Categories: Around Here
3 comments:
3 comments...
David has it completely wrong. Vote NO. All these programs are already paid for. If the county needs more money for maintenance, raise taxes from vacation rentals, boat moorage and beg from the state. Locals don’t have time to ride bikes, they’re working to pay the property taxes the county went crazy on.
I fully support an increase in the road levy and vote a resounding YES. The County, by law, can only use lodging tax from vacation rentals on specific projects, some of which they use to benefit residents who use these facilities, ie: parks and museums, year round. The County cannot use those funds for roads.
The tax to fund roads in our very vast county have not been increased since 1994 while costs for oil and other associated costs that effect paving costs have skyrocketed. I value safe and maintained roads for the relatively small cost and after such a long period of making due.
Also, if anyone read the Argument Against the road levy in the Voters Bulletin, they were incorrect when they said that if the levy passes, our property taxes would increase by 79%. That is totally wrong. The road levy comprises just 7% of our property taxes and the increased levy would increase that 7% by 79%.……Way Different and Way less.
Neither person addressed how they determined their percent that makes sense. Instead of unsupported percents, what are the dollar values so we can calculate what is being said. At the moment, my answer is no if I have to use this numerical food fight.
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